Ooops, I hijacked this thread
Sorry all:
Now that we have outed Tommy B, our cousin from north of Hadrian's Wall, lol, perhaps we can get back to James' original notion. I believe he wants to get opinions about Nominet to help him arrive at some talking points when he does interview them. Right, James?
My 2 Eurocents is (and my knowledge is limited, as I'm applying my energy to looking at ICANN's shortcomings):
It's quite normal for a "not for profit" company to have a positive balance on the books and, in fact, to make a profit on services rendered. Tax treatment is quite different compared to a "for profit" company.
However, some NFPs are shells in the name of charities, etc, and many times administrative expenses are so top heavy that only 10% of money raised is actually given to charities. Some of most well-paid executives work for so called NFPs. But, as a private company, there is no obligation to open the books to public scrutiny. Hence a NFP can be a marvelous insider slush fund, or a bona fide public good. Which is Nominet?
Do the "members" of Nominet know what's going on?
Where's the money? Who's getting it?
Are the directors directly benefiting from cross pollination directorships in other companies that could take advantage from insider info or preferred pricing?
In a domain dispute, (how) can Nominet be impartial? Where is the neutral third party?
Are the Nominet employees or directors charging the NFP for over-the-odds consultancy fees, etc?
Is Nominet really a for-profit company masquerading as a NFP, just to receive a favorable tax treatment?
And, at the end of the day, are Registrants receiving a good service and protection of their names? If no one is getting hurt, is there really any problem?
This is just off the top of my head stuff... what any reasonable and experienced business person would ask of any corporation, for or not-for profit.
Steve